• "If there's a restaurant out there that you love, visit it. Eat there. Especially if it's in the two-star or three-star category, where I sense some of the greatest vulnerability of all," advises a very sensible Frank Bruni today. [NYT]
• On a less serious (and more creative) note, Bruni manages to slap Charles with a zero-star review and poke fun at Graydon Carter in today's Times. [NYT]
• Mayahuel, the new tequila bar by Death & Co's Phil Ward, opens in May. [UD]
• Gordon Ramsay at the London may not be around for much longer. [TFB]
• Todd English's rep has confirmed he's out at the Libertine. [GS]
• It's Pera that is planning to take over the Bar Martignetti space. [Eater]
• Fast food has reinvented itself and is now cool again, just so you know. [NYP]

Kari Ferrell, the crazy pathological liar and scammer now legally known as the "Hipster Grifter," is already an internet superstar! We have new stories about her from unfortunate acquaintances. And the cops are everywhere!

Dan Abrams has hired FishbowlNY's Glynnis MacNicol for his new media site.

Weil Gotchal is one of three major law firms that has asked new associates to hang out until 2011 before showing up to work. The firms are encouraging recruits to push back their start dates on account of the recession, naturally, but Weil may have a harder time pleading poverty as of this afternoon. The firm just requested the largest quarterly fee in bankruptcy history for its work on the Lehman Brothers meltdown. Weil is asking a judge to turn over $55.1 million for the the work it has done over just the past four months—plus expenses, of course—and insiders say it will probably get every penny of it. And Weil is expected to earn another $200 million in the event General Motors files for bankruptcy protection. It isn't often that we wish we'd gone into bankruptcy law. But it looks like today is one of those days.

Now that it appears that last weekend's Amazon-banning gay-books Twitter storm was much ado about nothing, Clay Shirky has an insightful essay, "The Failure of #amazonfail," about why it's hard to let the outrage go.

United Airlines said today that it will require obese travelers to buy a second seat on flights that are especially full and in cases where other passengers complain about being cramped. And how do you know if you're too fat to fly? "Travelers must be able to put the arm rest between seats down to its normal position and buckle a seat belt with one extension belt." There you have it: When you start creeping into one extension belt territory, it's probably time to clip that Xenadrine ad out of the in-flight magazine. [Bloomberg]

That's an "Uncomfortable Plot Summary" for the first Star Wars movie. And, hey, it's pretty accurate! It's a fun game to play, and one that postmodernbarney has played exhaustively. What are some others?

New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman unleashed a screed yesterday on the Huffington Post about how the media never covers how bad it is for Israelis dealing with Palestinian terrorism. He should know.

How do engineers decide which jobs to take in Silicon Valley? It's a complex algorithm involving money, friends, hype, and free food. Nowhere in the equation: slick videos. That's why Facebook's recruiting is failing.

The ladies of Code Pink—you remember them, don't you?—protested outside the offices of AIG today. The turnout wasn't anything to brag out, as you can see above. But Reverend Billy did show up with a bullhorn, so at least the day wasn't a total loss! We must admit, though, that we're a little bit concerned to see that the good reverend has been so busy protesting, he clearly hasn't even had time to change his clothes. After the jump, a couple of photos from Billy's "exorcism" of Bank of America ATM machine in Union Square yesterday.

Consumer magazines as a whole lost nearly 26% of their ad pages in the first quarter. We broke out the numbers for Conde Nast, and they're just as bad. The biggest loser: Wired.

It's not just cable pundit "teabagging" jokes (attached) we have to deal with today: it's freedom fighters versus socialist/fascist big government ROBOTS! HAPPY TEA PARTY TAX DAY!

Hah, Ron Paul will be in Bruno. Sacha Baron Cohen lured him to studio with the promise of a serious interview about economics, and instead, obviously, it became a gay panic joke.

Ever wonder how much computer-book publisher Tim O'Reilly gets to flap his mouth at conferences about how everything should be free? His flack revealed it to the world last night via Twitter (of course).

Forget you, Sasha Frere-Jones. The hip hipster face of music appreciation is now Quentin Tarantino. The onetime Idol guest judge was a Mentor to the kids last night. With, you know, predicatably disastrous results.

We hate to be continually bringing you examples of gross advertising campaigns that gratuitously utilize the human bottom, but we have to report the facts. Click through for the latest outrage of literalism. [NSFW? Maybe!]

In your overflowing Wednesday media column: Sam Zell wakes up, alt-weekly censorship, Dan Abrams commiserates, Ben Affleck says words for some reason, Ann Moore doesn't expect to live long, and PRWeek goes monthly:

It was Drew Barrymore's big night at the Ziegfeld yesterday when the new HBO movie, Grey Gardens, had its premiere. On hand for the occasion and afterparty at the Pierre: Drew's co-stars Jessica Lange and Jeanne Tripplehorn, as well as guests like Justin Long (left), Jimmy Fallon, Rudy and Judi Giuliani, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, Gay Talese, Arthur Sulzberger, Dan Abrams, Roger Friedman, Hilary Rhoda, Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Peter Som, Jason Wu, Erin Fetherston, Kristin Wiig, Tony Sirico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Aerin Lauder, Albert Maysles, Ashleigh Banfield and Howard Gould, Monet Mazur, Debbie Harry, Selita Eubanks, the Beastie Boys' Mike D, Ad-Roc, and MCA, Aleksandra Baryshnikov, BD Wong, and the film's director, Michael Sucsy. [PMc, Wireimage, Getty, LAT, FWD]

If you're not selling something, you oughta be. That seems to be the ethos for the Real Houseladies of New York City, who spent an hour last night peddling their sad wares to lonely souls.

There's a storm coming. A storm of people making fun of the National Association of Marriage's terrible anti-gay marriage ad. They are afraid. So they're kicking critics off Facebook.